Campground is an odd name to appear along with Cemetery?  And there is a historical explanation of how that came to be.  Likely since the days of human habitation folks have been using the fresh water spring located in this small Ozarks valley.  The spring feeds into what is now called Walnut Creek which in turn goes now into Stockton Lake but historically ran into Sac River.  Likely humans found this valley a safe place from the harshest floods and freezing weather as the spring would not freeze and would provide fresh water year round. 

In 1835 Morris Mitchell at age 73 and his wife, Elizabeth, moved from Blount County Tennessee along with their middle-aged sons, their children and their grandchildren.  Family lore has it that the sons brought their father as his status as a soldier in the American Revolution entitled him to 640 acres of land.  Morris and Elizabeth had 15 children and it seems that some of them may have moved to Missouri earlier and were living in the area before they arrived.  Family lore also has their son Stephen accompanying their move along with his children.  He had 9 with Sarah Norwood Mitchell and 8 with his second wife Martha McClure Mitchell.  The Mitchells were prolific.  Thus it was possible for Elizabeth to state before her death in 1858 that she had 720 descendants she could count.  

Morris was a devout minister and many of his sons and sons-in-law were also thus they began annual week long camp revival meetings.  Entire families throughout the whole area would load up in wagons and travel to the Walnut Creek Spring just outside the current cemetery and spend a week worshipping, praising, and evangelizing all comers.  The women would cook together, children would play, and according to my grandpa, the teenagers would court.  Men and boys would take their saddle horses and once a day ride back home to tend to farm chores and ride back to camp meeting. 

Camp meetings ended with the Civil War which split the community and the Mitchell family.  Today those happier days are preserved in the name of the cemetery.